


Adaline Dursley

by zephsomething



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Second Generation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-13
Updated: 2020-08-13
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:41:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25874542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zephsomething/pseuds/zephsomething
Summary: Dudley liked to think his family was perfectly normal, it was honestly just easier that way. Then his daughter started floating her toys around.
Relationships: Dudley Dursley/Original Female Character(s), Harry Potter/Ginny Weasley
Comments: 6
Kudos: 24





	Adaline Dursley

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [A Series of Births](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25874062) by [zephsomething](https://archiveofourown.org/users/zephsomething/pseuds/zephsomething). 



> Shoutout to @ithopoiia for agreeing to edit this fic as well as the Surviving the War series. If you want to understand what any of the adults are doing at any given time I recommend popping over and reading that series also!

Chapter 1

Addy’s Age: 0

Year: 2005

Dudley liked to think his family was perfectly normal, it was honestly just easier that way. He’d gotten only one letter from Harry’s lot since Harry took off at seventeen and that was just a letter reassuring him that Harry had, in fact, survived the war. It hadn’t contained any contact information for Harry and it hadn’t occurred to Dudley to ask for it.

In many, if not most, ways his life had been set out for him, all he really had to do was make sure to wake up each morning. His wife, Kathleen, had been almost hand picked by his mother, a nice girl whose father worked with his. She was the kind of girl who giggled at the things Petunia said but only when Petunia wasn’t paying attention. His job was at the same company as his father, though it was one he doubted he would have gotten without his father’s help. 

After they married he and Kathleen bought a little house not far from the suburb where Dudley had grown up. Once they’d moved he saw his parents only when they came round for supper on the last Sunday of every month or at work functions. Kathleen’s family rarely visited and she never seemed to have any interest in visiting them. They were perfectly normal. At least that was Dudley’s assumption.

It was an assumption that changed entirely shortly after Kathleen gave birth to their first daughter; a happy and chubby baby who they named Adaline. By the time she was three months old her toys were floating around for her. Dudley had to sit down with Kathleen and explain about his cousin, whom he’d never told her about. The magical one who was kind of famous and probably a war hero from a war she hadn’t even known existed. That was followed by just over two weeks of cornering everyone dressed even remotely oddly and asking them if they knew where Harry Potter had ended up. 

Early one morning there was a knock on the door and Kathleen opened it. “Darling there’s a man on our doorstep, claims he’s your cousin.”

Adaline babbled and pointed towards her mother's voice from where she was currently cradled in his arms. When he came to the door he saw messy hair and green eyes set in a familiar face, Harry was frowning confusedly at Kathleen. A surge of relief washed over him. “Adaline, my girl, she’s like you Harry, she’s got magic, I don’t know what to do.”

“Well, panicking is always a good first step.” Harry smirked slightly before following Kathleen into the house.

“So it’s real then? Magic?” Kathleen stared at Harry like he held the key to a puzzle she’d been trying to solve for years. “My Adaline isn’t the only one floating her toys around?”

“There’s a school and everything, it starts at age 11.” Harry nodded, following Kathleen into the kitchen as she set about making tea. “It’s all a big secret though, magic and the school and such. Muggles, that’s you people like two, people without magic, aren’t really supposed to know about it all.”

“Nonsense, every child knows that magic exists.” Kathleen waved a hand and Dudley wondered for a moment how he’d managed to get lucky enough to end up with her, how his mother had never noticed any of these things about her. “It just gets drilled out of most heads during secondary school.”

“Exactly.” Harry nodded and Kathleen made a noise of understanding. “And Dudley she’s still just a child, just treat her like you would any child and she’ll be fine. Teach her not to show her magic around other people if she can avoid it but slips happen.” 

“Like disappearing glass?” Dudley smirked a little bit, hazy memories of snakes snapping at his heels coming to mind. 

“Exactly, except maybe not quite that, I’m a bit of a special case when it comes to snakes.” He shrugged a bit before putting a card on the table. “I’d love to stay for tea and catch up, but I’m actually just on lunch at work. This is my address, just call before you show up or Ginny’ll have my head.”

Dudley nodded slowly looking down at the card as Harry got up, took two steps, and then disappeared with a noise like a firecracker. 

“Oh, I like him.” Kathleen picked up the card, staring at the spot where Harry had vanished from. “You should have introduced us sooner.”

—

It was another couple weeks before they had a chance to call the number Harry had left them. During which time Dudley found that Harry had been right, other than the floating toys Adaline was very much the same as every other baby he’d ever met. She was hitting all the same marks that Kathleen’s books said she would around this age, just with a couple extra ones too. She was grabbing for things, trying to push herself up, and also getting slightly better aim when bringing toys towards herself. 

It was Kathleen who made the call to Harry; while Dudley was changing Adaline and packing the diaper bag. By the time he was back in the front hallway, with Adaline bundled into a coat, Kathleen already had her own coat on and held his out for him. They swapped easily, her taking Adaline so he could put his coat on. 

When they pulled up outside of the house Harry’s card had directed them to; Dudley was surprised to see a child sitting on the steps with a battered paperback book in one hand and candy coloured hair. The kid looked up as they got out of the car and grinned. “You must be the Dursley’s, Harry said you’d be coming. He’s still inside, is that little Addy? I’m Teddy by the by, wow, she’s way bigger than Al, watch out for James he’s a menace on his new toy broom.”

“Teddy take a breath would you?” A woman with bright red hair pulled into a braid opened the door and the boy, Teddy’s, whole face went red right up to and including the roots of his hair. Dudley was so distracted by the child’s hair changing colours he almost missed the woman’s next sentence. “Dudley, Kathleen, nice to meet you. I’m Ginny. Teddy is right though James just got a toy broom and he’s been shooting all around on it, he comes by that naturally though.” 

“Toy broom? You mean you really do ride around on brooms?” Kathleen asked as she carried Adaline up and into the house. Dudley trailed along behind her as Teddy slipped past everyone and darted off down the hall. 

Dudley lost track of the string of questions Kathleen was pelting Ginny with as they walked in and he got a look around Harry’s entry way. The walls were a mix of child’s drawings tacked up and framed photos, some still but others moving, the people in them laughing or dancing or waving. There were dozens of toys scattered around the living room they walked into, but only some of them were toys he was used to. Scattered among stuffed animals and plastic dinosaurs were little animals that squeaked and scuttled away if you stepped too close, picture books with moving pictures, and a baby sized wand. Almost as soon as they sat down a little boy with messy auburn hair and skin almost as dark as Harry’s came shooting into the room on a tiny broom. He was followed into the room by Harry himself who plucked the boy off the broom with an ease that spoke of practice. 

“Come here you, no more flying while we have guests.” Harry’s tone was light and, despite the child’s squeals, when Harry put him down again he just toddled over to one of the books. 

The boy waved at Harry before dropping down next to his book. “Okay dada.” 

“Albus is asleep love, for the moment at least.” Harry announced dropping down next to Ginny on the couch as Kathleen stared around at the room, taking in the photos and toys that moved on their own. 

For a moment there was silence, or as close to silence as you can get with two small children in an enclosed space. Then Dudley looked down at where Harry’s son, James, had dragged his book over to Adaline and was pointing at the pictures, which moved away from his jabbing fingers, while he nodded as seriously as a just under two year old can do. “I don’t know how to raise a magical child.”

“Because you’re so prepared to raise a muggle one?” Harry asked, raising his eyebrows in the same way he always had. 

“Well…” Dudley trailed off with a frown and found himself almost surprised when everyone, not just Kathleen, waited for him to think it through. He thought about the way his excitement had turned so quickly to stress when Kathleen had first announced her pregnancy, how most nights they still collapsed into bed wondering if they were doing this right. “No actually, you’re right. I don’t know how to raise any kind of child.”

“Luckily we know an expert.” Ginny tossed her braid back over her shoulder. “My mum had seven of us to deal with. She’s already got a dozen grandkids I’m sure she’ll welcome another one.”

“She’ll like this one.” Teddy was laying on his stomach in front of Adaline and James. For a second Dudley thought he’d pulled a fake pig's nose from somewhere until his nose changed shape again, this time into a duck's bill, to delighted squeals from both of the children. “Ain’t that right Addy? She’ll like you plenty.”

Adaline babbled and reached out to pat his duck’s bill. James turned to her and spoke with the kind of care only small children manage. “Teddy Duck.”

“Yup, Teddy’s got a duck bill.” Teddy grinned and his face shifted back to a human shape but his hair turned bright bruise purple. 

“Blue?” James frowned as Adaline tried to make grabbing hands without falling on her face. “No Addy, just look. Hair pull hurts.”

“We’d be delighted to meet her.” Kathleen said with a small smile at Ginny when Dudley didn’t seem able to find words for it.

Over the next few weeks, and dozens of visits to either the Weasley’s tall and twisting home or Harry and Ginny’s sprawling one, Kathleen took to the magical world with a sort of wide eyed joy that Dudley both loved and envied. He spent far more time eying the objects that moved on their own with suspicion learned at his mum’s elbow and a worry all his own.

When Adaline was just over five months old Kathleen smiled at Dudley and told him she was pregnant again. This time when he felt his mind freeze up he called his cousin because what if this one turned out to be magical too. His cousin, having just gotten similar news, was just barely able to make Dudley laugh by the end of the conversation. 

As it turned out this one, who they named Aubrey, was not magical, but by two she was already adding, and that worried Dudley almost as much as Adaline’s magic did. 

Dudley still liked to think his family was quite normal, it was honestly just easier that way. At least it was once he’d gotten his mind wrapped around a slightly different version of normal. He had a good job at the same company as his father, they lived in a nice house on a nice street, and his daughters terrified him almost as much as he loved them. Once you got right down to it, it all seemed pretty normal to him. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to everyone who's reading this! It will update to match years with the Surviving the War series so it will likely update fairly slow at first.


End file.
